Polish pen pals offer excitement

Destiny Banks has a new pen pal from Poland. The fourth grader at Jones-Farrar Magnet School read aloud a letter she received from her new friend, to her peers Tuesday. As several members of her class gathered in the school library, Banks spoke of her new friend with a smile.

By Jane Lethlean

Journal Standard

By Jane Lethlean

Posted Jan. 30, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jan 30, 2013 at 3:06 PM

By Jane Lethlean

Posted Jan. 30, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jan 30, 2013 at 3:06 PM

Freeport, Ill.

Destiny Banks has a new pen pal from Poland. The fourth grader at Jones-Farrar Magnet School read aloud a letter she received from her new friend, to her peers Tuesday. As several members of her class gathered in the school library, Banks spoke of her new friend with a smile.

Looking on as she read was Bernadette Mekalska, a native of Poland, who works at FSD 145. Mekalska joined the students for the program, talking to them about her native country and to explain life there.

Banks said she had never heard of Poland before she began writing her letters, and adds having a new friend across the world is exciting.

“I like having friends,” Banks said. “It is really exciting to know I can have a friend from a place I just learned about, and it’s cool to know she does things like I do — she likes pizza and TV.”

Kids Around the World

Rita Leerhoff, who works in the school library at Jones-Farrar, is responsible for setting up the pen pal program. It was after a unit she did on Poland that she reached out to the school in Osiek, Poland to get the letting writing started. Mekalska told the students that Osiek is a rural farming community.

“This really began during last semester,” Leerhoff said. “I had talked to the students about Poland, and translated the language for them to understand.

“The kids here wrote letters first, and then it took awhile for the letters to come back,” she added.

Leerhoff said she got the students together on Tuesday to read the letters they had received. Mekalska was able to help translate information to the students they did not understand.

“The kids have been so excited to know they have pen pals on the other end of the world, and what they learned is the Polish kids love to read, and they also like pizza,” Leerhoff said. “Even though the students are miles apart, they are so similar — it is a language that separates them.”

Jaydreona Clark said having a new friend from Poland is about developing a new way of thinking “that the world is not so big is it?”

“I like that I can say I have a friend that is so different from what I am used to, and when I write back to my new friend, I will tell her all about my town, and that I am good at Hip-Hop dancing,” Clark said.